Today, in a move that illustrates exactly why Glenn Beck has painstakingly tried to portray himself over the past year as some kind of man of the people while hosting a show on the infamous Fox News Channel that cheered the War in Iraq, he turned an interview with Debra Medina, a candidate for the TX Governer seat, into a PR ambush on her and the 9/11 Truth movement.

Note that Beck structures his question to preclude any discussion or evidence or reason. He presumes that the mainstream account of 9/11 is a reality, and any form of challenge to that reality must be derive frommadness or socialdeviance.

Beck began his interview with Debra Medina on Thursday by stating: "There was a theme that ran against you, which is that you're a 9/11 truther."

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"Well, there's lots of mud that people would like to throw at Debra Medina and make it stick " But that's the first time I've heard that accusation. That's an interesting one," Medina responded, laughing.

"Then let me be more frank and ask you the question," Beck said. "Do you believe the government was in any way involved with the bringing down of the World Trade Center on 9/11?"

"I don't have all of the evidence there, Glenn, so I'm not in a place - I have not been out publicly questioning that," Medina said. "I think some very good questions have been raised in that regard, there are some very good arguments and I think the American people have not seen all the evidence there, so I have not taken a position on that."

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"I think the people of America might think that might be a yes," Beck replied. After the interview, the radio host added: "While I don't endorse any candidates, I think I can write her off the list."

Since then, the mainstream media machine, (including the Raw Story article that the above excerpt is from) ,has been in full attack mode with articles screaming that Medina's political career is over,including commentary from carefully selected pundits to punctuate this point in the minds of their audiences as they are portrayed as authorities on what the attitudes of average Americans are.

While in the isolated world of network news ,asking questions about the biggest mass murder in US history which has led the United States to adopt policies of pre-emptive war, torture, and pass the Patriot Act, is considered "on the fringe ", a CBS/New York Times Scientific poll in 2006 showed that 84% surveyed reject the official 9/11 story. 53 percent of respondents thought the Bush administration was hiding something about the attacks, while 28 percent believed it was outright lying.

While the mainstream media is attempting to send the message that questioning the government's complicity in 9/11 is out of bounds, through use of carefully scripted articles and mass peer pressure, it is unlikely that anyone who already has an opinion on the issue will be swayed one way or another. By putting Medina on the spot, Beck's target was two-fold to derail Medina's campaign in order to maintain the current fake right/left political machine in Texas and keep a wave of successful grassroots candidates from sweeping through other states, and to cast further scorn upon the 9/11 Truth movement in a desperate hope that the questions surrounding that terrible day will be swept under the rug. Portraying himself as a grassroots champion on a network that proudlypromotes torture and war and presents slanted stories under the Orwellian line of "Fair and Balanced" allows Beck to reach his audience with an air of credibility while acting as the controlled opposition that steers its members away from any issues that challenge the establishment.

Many people on the fence who don't believe the government's story of what happened on 9/11 have not committed to the idea yet that the government was complicit in the attacks because of the grand implications of such a revelation, or because they themselves haven't seen enough of the evidence to decide. So they only question. Fox News exploits this state of educated uncertainty by presenting questions in terms of absolutes. The questions are asked in such a way as to stifle discussion and put the one being interviewed on the spot. If the guest tries to give an answer that is more than a just yes or a no, they are usually interrupted and the question is repeated in a sharper tone. If the person says yes then their answer is followed b yscoffs and bullying from the host, who proceeds to lecture the guest and call that person names. If the person weakens and says no, then Fox News has achieved its aim without much effort. With the host controlling the time given to the guest to answer question and the flow of the conversation there is hardly any chance for a real discussion or debate of the issue.

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Fox News isn't the only major "news" network that aims to scare the public away from questioning the events of 9/11, but it is the most notorious. Despite the mainstream media's efforts to squash the 9/11 Truth movement and keep any real debate from seeing the light of day, over the past 8 years the movement has rapidly grown.

Paul Conant, blogging at Znewz, concluded:"We need a new breed of politician who see ridicule by the organs of propaganda as a badge of honor, who laugh derisively at these phonies. It may seem impossible to bypass the press bottlenecks. But it isn't. We need people to start thinking in new ways."

Andrew Steele is the editor of America 20xy-- an independent news service that highlights articles from around the web focusing on international and economic policy, and human rights abuses. The mission statement for the page is a quote from Thomas (more...)